Malia Obama Begins College Application Process With Ivy League Tours

Malia Obama, who began her senior year of high school this fall, is currently in the process of deciding which college she will attend, and the First Daughter is pulling out all the stops to make sure her educational experience is the very best.

The New York Times reports the 17-year-old is touring Ivy League schools like Brown, Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale, but has also given liberal arts schools like Wesleyan a chance. Her SAT scores aren’t publicly known, but her presidential parents have called the teen a hard worker.

Just last month, President Barack Obamaspoke to supporters and high school students in Des Moines about the advice he’s given his daughter during the nail-biting process.

“One piece of advice that I’ve given her is not to stress too much about having to get into one particular college,” Mr. Obama told a group in Des Moines last month. “Just because it’s not some name-brand, famous, fancy school doesn’t mean that you’re not going to get a great education there.”

His second piece of advice, the president said as the room broke into laughter, “is keep your grades up until you get in, and after that, make sure you pass.”

Malia has been in good company during her tours. For her trip to Columbia, her guide was Zila Reyes Acosta-Grimes, a third-year law school student who is the daughter of a New York jurist. Her tour around Harvard — where her parents attended law school — was led by Taylor Nides. Nides is the daughter of Thomas R. Nides, a former deputy secretary of state under presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and Virginia Moseley, the deputy Washington bureau chief at CNN.

Mom Michelle Obama even took a step back by allowing Malia to attend school tours with family friends.

Malia’s extracurriculars are sure to be a standout on her college applications. Over the past two summers, the teen interned in New York for the HBO series GIRLS, and served as a production assistant on CBS’s Extant starring Halle Berry.

She also hinted at a possible move to Stanford when she was spotted sporting a t-shirt from the school during a bike ride in Martha’s Vineyard in August.